


Hope Rides Alone

by f1shychan



Category: Rockman | Mega Man Classic, The Protomen
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Song Lyrics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-04
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-05-18 02:51:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5895196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/f1shychan/pseuds/f1shychan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone has written on this stone..</p><p>In some angry hand..</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hope Rides Alone

**Author's Note:**

> A little something I put together to serve as my summative project for Writer's Craft class. Not sure if I should classify this as a songfic or not, since I use lyrics from the songs. Skipped 'Funeral for a Son' because it has no lyrics.

        To even say that he--the man who turned the wheels--ruled the city with an iron fist was a monumental understatement. His eyes were everywhere, watching and waiting, and if anyone stepped out of line, they would likely not last to see a new day. But after so many years of ruling, the esteemed Albert Wily had broken those who were beneath him. No one seemed to care.. Or, at least, no one who was still living. No one would dare challenge the robots that patrolled the streets, holding the populace in place.. As far as Wily was aware, anyway. Even his thousand eyes had blind-spots.

        In a weathered tenement deep within the reaches of the city, twenty floors above the dim streets, was the good doctor--Thomas Light. He lived alone, but he was not a lonely spirit. He was brilliant and impulsive and hard-working, and filled with ideas that the dark society in which he lived forbade and shunned as ignorant.

        During the night, whenever the ever-vigilant eyes of the robots weren't on him, Thomas slaved away, pouring his thoughts out onto paper until he finally crafted one, perfect idea. For over a decade, he soldered, hammered and welded his perfect idea together. He bled in his persistence, sweat in determination and wept in frustration, but finally, after twelve years, on an icy winter’s night, the hero was born. He would be the device to bring about a change. He would be the machine to free the people. He would be the man that would save the world.

        Thomas dabbed the perspiration off of his brow with a dirtied cloth, and held his breath as he powered it on for the first time. It looked down on him from its platform, backlit glass eyes keen and inquisitive. Thomas looked back, unable to keep a trembling smile at bay.

        He was a machine of unparalleled strength and precision; a perfect man. He could think, he could speak, he could feel. He was the good doctor’s son, and amidst all the darkness, he was hope; hell-bent on exterminating the evil that stood its guard between mankind and freedom. Proto Man. 

        After a long while of final adjustments, it was time. Proto Man stood before the open window, frowning past the dark visor of his helmet at the city below. “Why doesn’t anyone do anything?” he asked his father. “Is there no one that cares that they’re trapped here?”

        “They are a broken people,” the old man replied, placing a hand on Proto Man's shoulder. “They do not understand what a hero is. You must show them true courage. Perhaps when they see you fighting, they will stand with you.  Are you truly ready?”

        Proto Man tightened a fist. The question was almost absurd--the answer was clear “You spent twelve years preparing me for this day, father.” His voice, akin to the steel that was his foundation, was hard and sure. “I am ready. I will not fail you.”

        In one, graceful leap, Proto Man vaulted himself through the window and began flying towards the ground. When he landed, the asphalt beneath his feet cracked and shattered. Frightened people watched from their darkened homes as he strode down the street, dark coat billowing in the wind. In place of his right arm was a long, iron gun, cocked and ready. One of the guard bots, sensing a threat, rushed at him. It was torn apart by a golden stream of bullets before it so much as touched him.

        Another came at him. And another. And another. Each one of them failed to pose a threat.

        Proto Man battled his way through the streets, littering the pavement with oil, scorch marks and broken machinery. As he fought his way to the centre of the city, people had begun to creep out of their homes. First, they were alarmed by the commotion, but when they saw him, something sparked within them. One by one, from child to elder, people began to rally to him. Hope was something that they had not seen for decades. Now, amidst all the strife and darkness, there was a light. Their saviour. He’d finally come.

         _Are they finally beginning to understand?_   Proto Man wondered. A few of them were shouting encouragements and admirational words at him. _Have they finally come to stand up against the evil?_

        Wily was waiting for the red-helmeted hero. He’d anticipated this day for a long time. Before his gates stood a row of figures, wordless. Their eyes did not shine. Their hearts did not beat. They were his most precious weapons, and they would _not_ tolerate this revolution.

        Proto Man wasted no time. He leapt forward to meet them head-on, weapon glinting and eyes rife with fury. Rage coursed through his body. It was a burning, visceral rage, causing his throat to tighten and his blood to run hot. This city had been a slave to fear for too long. The hour of liberation was nigh. This was the moment he'd been built for.

        Six were pitted against one. Steam and steel clashed, filling the city with the loud, screaming song of battle.

        It seemed to drag on for hours. With every shot of electricity, barrage of flames or razor edge that glanced off of Proto Man’s mighty shield--at every near-miss--the crowd seemed to shout louder and more fiercely. Robot after robot came down upon Proto Man. He ripped them all apart, dashing the ground with oil and blood.

        But it didn’t seem to matter how many he’d slain, or how high the mountains of crushed, burning machinery grew. They just kept coming. The flow of the enemy’s army was like a torrent of water--no matter how hard he tried to stop it, it surged forward.

_I will not back down. I cannot._

        Proto Man could feel his wounds growing deeper and more numerous. Blood seeped out of the humanesque parts of his body, staining his armour a deeper shade of crimson than it already was. He tried to ignore it, but he could feel his energy slowly dwindling away. Bit by bit, the hero’s opposition tore away at his protective plating, exposing him more and more to their attacks.

         _The people will stand up. They will surely learn courage._

        When he wasn’t looking, a robot leapt up behind Proto Man and filled him with a bolt of electricity, and he screamed in agony, feeling every circuit in his body shiver and burn in protest to it. He staggered away from his opponents, desperate for a moment to breathe. The people fell silent as they beheld their splendidly ruined wreck of a hero.

         _They must._

        His left arm--or, what was left of it--hung limply at his side, useless. His armour was barely clinging to his body, twisted and half-melted and caked in robotic gore. His helmet had been dented in and his visor smashed, exposing his face. Cracks wound around his body like a web.

        Once, Proto Man's gaze had glimmered with determination and fury. He’d rushed into the fray ready, willing, and prepared to fight for freedom. But now, something else had crept into his system, like a poison: Fear.

        Blinding, terrifying, hopeless fear.

        Yet this, plain as the day in Proto Man's eyes, was not enough to move mankind. They stood in theirs places, frozen in horror. Not once had the frightened looks from their hero, falling from grace, emboldened them to fight. Not a single soul had broken away from the no longer chanting crowd. Not a single soul valued courage over life.

         _Can they not see?_  
  
        "We are the dead," an elderly man lamented. 

        Even as Proto Man deployed his last defence and his functionality began slipping out of his grasp, mankind remained in place.

         _Will they never fight?_  
  
        "We are the dead," said a little girl. 

        The hero was battling as hard as he could, but he was starting to see that his efforts alone would not be enough. He was not the perfect man his father had wanted him to be. He was not the unbeatable machine the city needed him to be. Despite this, the city did _nothing_.

         _Will they NEVER learn?_  
  
        "We are the dead," cried a young man.

        One by one, the red robot could feel his systems failing within him, his vision fizzling out and blurring. He raised his weapon once more, but it was now cracked down the middle, rendered inoperative.

        In his last moments, as Albert Wily ordered the final blow, the fallen saviour looked to the crowd, eyes filled with a seething hatred. As their words sank in and death lunged towards him, Proto Man knew. His father had been right. They were a broken people.

         _You are the dead._


	2. Unrest in the House of Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You cannot win!"

Rock pressed a hand to the dirtied window. Rain ran down the outside surface and steadily pelted the grounds below. He watched as people flitted hurriedly from place to place, as if afraid to linger anywhere for too long. He’d watched this exact scene, every single day, for as long as he could remember. Everything anyone said or did was the same. It was painfully monotonous. Life was linear, like a grid, and if someone strayed from the lines, they would screw up the delicate math of the way things worked. The government was meticulous about keeping a clean record.

It had been five years since the “brutal terrorist attack” on the city government, and ever since, everyone had been more tight-lipped than ever.

He was so sick of it all. Physically, it made him want to vomit, sometimes. Rock turned his head to look at his father. A shell of his former self, Thomas Light slumped at the darkened kitchen table, guzzling down brandy to chase the day’s unsavoury thoughts away. He’d been a great man once, perhaps.. Filled with ideas, determined.. Hopeful, even. Rock had leafed through the decades of concepts and aspirations that the doctor had piled in the dustiest corners of the apartment. A kind of heroic brilliance lay in those papers, but when the young robot saw his father now, all he could see was just another useless, empty pawn, like the rest of the denizens that scurried about below.

Rock stepped away from the window and stalked over to the kitchen, chair groaning noisily against the cracked stone flooring. He seated himself across from his father and placed his forearms on the oak tabletop. He said nothing, just stared.

Thomas hesitated to look up from his bottle. For a long moment, the drumming of the rain against the window was the only sound that could be heard. Finally, he set his booze down, meeting his son’s hard gaze. His eyes were red with insomnia and the effects of the alcohol, but they were fixated gravely on Rock, unfazed by the intensity of his eyes. He knew why he’d sat down so abruptly.

A long, exasperated sigh broke the relative silence. “I’ve told you the story a hundred times over.”

“I’m sick of bedtime stories,” Rock stated dryly. “I’ve seen your hidden documents, father. I know the story about the hero, and I know you’re not telling me the whole truth.”

Thomas Light steepled his hands together under his bearded chin, eyes fluttering shut. Something was different today. There was some sort of venom behind his son’s words that wasn’t usually there. He couldn’t evade the truth this time around. Rock's mind had been wandering too far lately for that old trick, it seemed. There was a moment of reluctance, still, and then the doctor said in a quiet voice, “Very well. I’ll tell you the story one last time. I won’t leave anything out, but I want you to listen carefully.” He met his son’s gaze with equal fervency. “You need to know.”

The wrinkles that stretched across Thomas' face creased as he spoke. Talking of such things seemed to pain him. 

“There.. There was another who came before you--The hero. The man I’ve told you about countless before you went to sleep.”

Rock looked perplexed, and pulled his brow down in a frown. “I have heard this all before. You-”

“He was my first son. Your brother. I built him for twelve years, only to lose him in an instant.”

Rock stiffened.

“He wanted to change the world. _I_ wanted to. He fought the darkness, and the darkness won. He fought until every last circuit in his body was fried, but he was forsaken by the city. The people he wanted to save.” The doctor’s voice sounded strained, now, as he tried to keep his emotions at bay. “His death was in vain.”

Rock clasped his forehead. This was too much. He couldn’t take all of this in so quickly. He shoved his chair back and stood, stumbling backwards. “My brother.” His voice was trembling, overflowing with disbelief and shock. “My _brother_? God.. Oh, God..”

“You are not him. Please remember that.”

Thomas' voice had grew sharp as he approached the smaller, blue-clad figure, settling a calloused hand on his metallic shoulder. “They can’t be saved by just one man. They’re cowards. I’m sorry, because I was wrong. I would take away the weight his shoulder’s had to bear. When he fell, I was the only man who mourned him. The city.. The goddamn city mourns the fact that their freedom was taken away, not the hero who failed to save them.”

The robotic young man still wasn’t looking at him. Dr. Light's grip on his son’s shoulder tightened. “Are you even listening to me? You are _not_ him! Do you hear?” He shook him slightly. ”His fight’s _not_ your’s. You mustn't forget that, no matter what I’ve told you.”

Rock tore himself out of his father’s grasp and stalked towards the living room, back to the window. His eyes brimmed with tears of horror, and the tips of his fingers dug into the soft, water-damaged wood of the window sill. The sickening feeling in his stomach was festering again. His heart felt like a ton of lead under the pressure of what Thomas had just revealed to him. _My father did nothing._ It was somewhat alarming to hear how spiteful his thoughts had become in such a short span of time. _For five years, he filled himself with alcohol and wallowed in his own grief, and did nothing else but that._

“That story’s _finished_.” Thomas' voice, now furiously serious, rang out in the still air of the apartment. “There’s nothing more we can do for this doomed city. Get that in your head. I will _not_ risk _losing_ you. Do you understand me?”

Rock buried his face in his hands and said nothing. He was trembling steadily. How could he _not_ avenge his own _son_? He grit his teeth together. “You.. You coward..”

“Did you hear _nothing_ I have _said_?” growled Thomas. “One man cannot save these people. A man tried, and he _failed_. If you leave now, you will be fighting for people who have chosen their _own_ end. Have you forgotten all the days you spent staring blankly outside at the very people that caused your brother’s death?”

“You.. _Coward_..”

“You are _not_ him!”

Rock could see through the reflection of the glass panel that his father was shaking, as well.

“You will _stay_ here,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “You will _obey_ me, and I will keep grieving for the son I sent to death. You are _all_ that I have _left!_ ”

Rock's hands curled into fists.

“You are _not_ him!” Dr. Light screamed again, distress lacing every word that flew off of his tongue. “This fight’s _not_ your’s!”

Rock whirled around suddenly and whipped past his father. He threw the front door open and charged into the hallway. Thomas rushed after him.

By the time Thomas reached the end of the hallway, his son had disappeared into the stairway. He dashed towards the railing and yelled after the fleeing robot,

_“You cannot win!”_


End file.
